It is fair to say that Keanu Reeves is one of those actors who everyone pretty much loves and today we are looking at the first Keanu Reeves movie to see where this legendary career started. From traveling through time to avoid military school, having a run-in with Count Dracula, stopping a bus from going over 50 mph, entering the Matrix, and shooting a million bad guys when he is John Wick! With this man's legendary career, Keanu Reeves' first movie and the early days of his career may surprise you!
In this video, part of the series “Celebrities’ First Movie Appearance”, you can see Keanu Reeves in his very first movie role in One Step Away:
Hitting The Small Screen
Before we get to the first Keanu Reeves movie, we want to talk about his first acting credit. Having been raised in Canada, it makes sense that his first appearance on the small screen would be in a Canadian TV show. The show in question is Hanging’ In during the middle of the series run in 1984, which actually aired on Nickelodeon and was about a teen center where teens could hang out, get advice, and so on. It tried to walk the fine line between having some humor as well as dealing with actual issues that teens faced. His role here would not even have a name as he is credited as a “teen client”.
A Long Career Launched With A Small Movie
Now, the first Keanu Reeves movie was actually a short film released in 1985, One Step Away. Here Keanu Reeves plays the role of a teenager called Ron Petrie who lives with his mom and he is a rebellious teen whose antics are causing his mother a ton of problems, it is so severe, that they are getting kicked out of their house! We all know Keanu Reeves as a laid-back kind of guy, but he is rather aggressing and intimidating in this role as he gives into peer pressure and sees a life of crime as his only way out. For a first job, he does a fantastic job and if you are a fan and have never seen this, you need to check it out, it lasts for under 30 minutes, but those 28 minutes launched a career that would last decades and still be going to this day!
The First Real Theatrical Role
While Keanu Reeves first movie was the 1985 short, One Step Away, it would be the following year that his career would really take off. His first theatrical role was the 1985 sports drama, Youngblood. What is neat about this is that this is a sports movie about hockey and it is very fitting being that Keanu Reeves is Canadian. In Youngblood, Keanu Reeves plays the role of Heaver, the goaltender for The Mustangs hockey team. For you movie trivia fans, Youngblood has quite an impressive 80s cast as it featured Rob Lowe in the lead and the always-awesome Patrick Swayze. Youngblood may not have blown up the box office, but it proved to be a popular rental.
A Huge First Year
While Youngblood may have been the first movie Keanu Reeves would appear in during 1986, he would appear in two more movies during this theatrical debut year. First of all, we have the teen romance drama, Flying, which depending on where you live may be called, Dream to Believe, Teenage Dream, or Love at the Edge! Here, Keanu Reeves plays the role of a teenager called Tommy who plays a very important part in the main character, Robin’s quest to become a gymnastics star. However, during this first year, we would argue that the most important Keanu Reeves movie was Rivers Edge. In this one, Keanu Reeves plays the role of Matt and Matt is the voice of reason in this brutal teen movie about a young girl who is killed by her boyfriend and the way that the connected teens deal with it. The stuff with Keanu Reeves’ Matt and his younger brother is really powerful stuff. It may not be the cheeriest movie, but it is an engrossing and brutal watch!
Catching His Big Break….Dude
Keanu Reeves would have a big couple of years and in 1988, he appeared in a few different movies. He would have a starring role in The Night Before as well as an appearance with the fantastic cast of the 1988 version of Dangerous Liaisons which starred, Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer, and John Malkovich. However, it was two movies in 1989 that truly launched the career of Keanu Reeves. While it was filmed a couple of years prior, it was Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure that really propelled Keanu Reeves to stardom, this was Keanu Reeves' breakout role. Playing the lovable slacker dude of Ted “Theodore” Logan. He and his friend Bill, played by Alex Winter went on a wild ride through time to bring back historical figures to pass their history report so that their band, The Wild Stallions could unite humanity in the future…. Yeah, this is a wild and crazy movie, but it truly clicked with people and became a big deal, with video games, an animated series, merchandise, a sequel, and a new movie over 30 years later!
“They’ll Let Any Butt-Reaming A*****e Be A Father”
The other movie in 1989 that greatly helped make Keanu Reeves a star was Ron Howard’s Parenthood. Featuring an incredible ensemble cast, it may not have been Keanu Reeves' first movie, but this is one of his earlier movies that truly showed his range as an actor. He plays the role of Tod, the boyfriend of Julie whose mother, Helen is not happy as Julie drops out of school, gets married to Tod and she is also pregnant! What starts off as a one-dimensional character becomes someone who truly is deep and the scene where he gives his speech about how anyone can be a father is one of the highlights of the movie and one of the earliest signs of just how much range as an actor Keanu Reeves has, something that he would struggle to get people to accept in the coming years. However, Parenthood showed that he could do the dramatic stuff just as well as the comedy.
Looking back at the first Keanu Reeves movie is kind of fun as this legendary career started with that 28-minute short movie, One Step Away in 1985. However, you could argue that Keanu Reeves' first movie was actually Youngblood as that was a full, theatrically released movie. He is such a great actor and such a likable man that it is a lot of fun to look back on the early days of his career as right from the start, you can tell that he just had something about him that made you want to watch any movie that he was in.